Video: Tone

Ben: Earlier in this course, we talked about the idea that you can create balance in an image by playing different tones against each other. So, you might balance light against dark, dark against light. You can balance dark parts against each other; you can do the same with light parts. These are all ways that you can create balance in your image. However, there will be times when you can't get the tonal balance that you want in camera through exposure adjustment. Sometimes you simply can't capture the dark blacks or light whites that you need to create the composition that you want.

Composition can make an interesting subject bland or make an ordinary subject appear beautiful. In this course, photographer and author Ben Long explores the concepts of composition, from basics such as the rule of thirds to more advanced topics such as the way the eye travels through a photo.

The course addresses how the camera differs from the eye and introduces composition fundamentals, such as balance and point of view. Ben also examines the importance of geometry, light, and color in composition, and looks at how composition can be improved with a variety of post-production techniques. Interspersed throughout the course are workshop sessions that capture the creative energy of a group of photography students; shooting assignments and exercises; and analyses of the work of photographers Paul Taggart and Connie Imboden.

Tone

Ben: Earlier in this course, we talked about the idea that you can create balancein an image by playing different tones against each other.So, you might balance light against dark, dark against light.You can balance dark parts against each other;you can do the same with light parts.These are all ways that you can create balance in your image.However, there will be times when you can't get the tonal balance that you wantin camera through exposure adjustment.Sometimes you simply can't capture the dark blacks or light whites that youneed to create the composition that you want.

In these instances, you'll need to expose to capture as much tonal informationas you can, with the idea that you will correct the tones in that image to getthe composition that you want.In other words, sometimes you'll need to darken up blacks or lighten up whitesor adjust the grays or colors in your image to finish it off and get thatcompositional balance working.Alrighty. We're going to look at three examples of how I have altered tone in an image toachieve the idea that I had in my mind's eye while I was shooting.

This lesson is going to assume that you understand the use of adjustment layersand adjustment layer masks in Photoshop.You can see over here that I've got several adjustment layers on this image:a Black & White adjustment layer, three levels adjustment layers, and thesetwo have layer masks that I've carefully painted to constrain the effects ofthose adjustment layers.If this is all gobbledygook to you, if you are not comfortable withadjustment layers, or you wish you knew more about them, take a look atFoundations of Photography: Black and White course.

It's going to walk you through the things that we're going to be doing here.This is the image as I shot it. You saw this earlier in the--actually you'veseen all three of the images that we're going to look at here--earlier in the"Tonal Balance" movie.The first thing I did of course was to convert the image to black and white, andin the process of doing that I made some choices about tone.I decided that this red up here should be a very light tone, rather than adarker tone, because I wanted to balance against this darker stuff.Let me just show you what that would have looked like if I had chosen instead todo this as a darker tone.

I am going to up here and simply re-tone the reds darker.So, you can see now I'm creating a very different image.I've got dark over here, dark over here, and light down here.I wanted to go with something lighter.So, I started with my black-and-white conversion and that gets me to here, butI'm still not getting the light-against-dark thing that I was thinking when Iwas standing there in the image.The next thing I did was hit it with a levels adjustment and now we are getting somewhere.I've got some nice darkness in here.What I'm not liking here is that this whole side is just one uniform shade of blah.

It's just not that interesting.It's a pretty middle gray.When I print it it's going to look especially kind of boring.So I created an adjustment layer here that lightens the image, and I labeled itLighten just to help me remember what it's doing. And I painted a mask thatconstrains the lightening to only this building, hoping that that's going tobreak things up a little bit.It gets me some true white in my image right here, and usually it's better.You get a better sense of contrast in your image if there is something that's really white in it.The next thing I did was an adjustment layer that darkens and built a mask thatconstrains it to there.

So now I've really got my light-against-dark thing.Let's do a little before-and-after thing here.Here is with straight black-and-white conversion and after my toning, I get this.So, I have really built it up into what I was thinking when I was standingthere at the scene.Let's look at another one here.Again you saw this earlier.My idea when I was shooting this was a couple of things.I liked the dark down here and the light up here.I liked the idea that these bright rocks down here were maybe kind ofsymmetrical with these darker tones up here, these trees and this cloud.

Let's see what I came up with.I started with a black-and-white conversion that got me to here.There is not a lot of color in this image.Here is the color version.Here is the black-and-white version.So I didn't have too much toning that I could do in black and white.Rest of this was pretty simple.I threw in a layer that darkens--this is a levels adjustment layer-- and I used the Gradient tool to make asmooth mask, or a smooth gradient, that is--that allowed me to here it comestone adjust the sky.So I've gotten the sky a little bit darker.It's kind of washed out, a little bit boring.I wanted to see more definition in the clouds, so there we go.

You could see my mask is a little sloppy. It spills over onto these rocks up here.It doesn't matter; it just looks like shadows on the rocks.The next thing I did was an adjustment layer that increases contrast and again,I used the Gradient tool to constrain this contrast adjustment to only affectthis part of the image, the lower part of the image and when I get that, I end up here.So now, I've really exaggerated the blacks down here, the lighter tones up here,and I am getting that kind of gradient that I was looking for.However, because of this bright stuff up in the sky, these blown-out highlightshere, the eye tends to wander a little bit and also, since I usually end upprinting my images, it's a problem having paper-white going all the way to theedge of the frame, because when I print this, there won't be a clear border.

So I added a vignette to this image, and we discussed how to vignette in anothermovie, but you can see with a vignette, I get this. That's before. That's after.It does give me some framing. It focuses my attention more into the center of the image.Let's look at one more here. Again another image that you've seen already.Here is my original and as I'm standing here looking down this sidewalk inMangum, Konrad is standing down there. But what I'm seeing is I love this linehere that's vanishing to the same point as this line here and this wonderfultonal balance between these two shades.

So of course I started with a black-and-white adjustment.It didn't do much here in terms of my toning other than to make sure that my skywas being rendered so that the blues were pretty dark so that the clouds wouldstand out a little more.And then I made a whole bunch of adjustment layers here.And as you can see, I've labeled them so that I can remember what they do.This one darkens, and it's got a mask that constrains it to right there, sothat I am just darkening up this part of the sidewalk. And I got a little sloppy there.I got some spill. Keep an eye on this as I turn that adjustment layer off andyou can see that maybe that's not supposed to be so dark.

It doesn't look that weird to me in this image--maybe I'll go back and patchthat up--but it just looks like, I don't know, there is a stain on the sidewalk orsomething like that.Here is another adjustment layer that darkens.This one is constrained to here.I threw in basically some more darkness in here.It's almost like a little bit of manual vignetting.It just looks like a shadow here in the deep bits up against the wall. It serves tofocus attention more into here.The next thing I did was actually lighten all of this stuff up here.And I did that for a couple of reasons.One, this was just looking a little blah with all this gray and again, when I goto print this image, with it like this, there's so much middle gray in itthat it becomes the dominant tone that hits your eye.

And it tends to make for an image that just looks muddy or flat somehow.So the more I can get true white into the image--if it's appropriate--the more Iam going to have an image that's got nice contrast.So, I thought these nice white beams were replaced to do that.It's not necessarily an unrealistic amount of light. If you're going to getpicky about the kind of thing, it could be light reflecting off the sidewalk.I like these bricks lighting up.It also serves to make this bit look darker by comparison, and that plays upthis tonal relationship.This next one is real subtle.You can see that this one is lightened.

My mask is completely black and you should know, if you're comfortable with layermasks, that that means that none of this effect is getting through to the image.But there is a little teeny-tiny bit.You just can't see it in this little thumbnail of the mask.If you watch Konrad's head right there when I turn this on, I just lightened uphis face a little bit.At the tiny size you are looking at this, you may go wow,why bother, but if I print this at an 8x10, that actually is noticeable.With all that done, I took a look at my histogram and decided that I just neededan overall contrast boost. Let's take a look here.

You can see, without his layer on, I'm short on whites.I don't have a lot of really nice bright white in my image.So hitting this cranks those up, gets my tones more into place, and thisimage is ready to go.So those are the types of edits that I am doing on all of these images that you are seeing.I am really looking for where things need to be darkened, where things need tobe lightened, not just when I'm trying to balance tones against each other, butby way of controlling the viewer's eye.As you saw down here, I darkened this to try and lead the viewer into here, andI'm also just thinking about good overall photo editing practice, which is tohave a nice amount of dynamic range and tones that are going to print well,whites that are truly white, blacks that are truly black, and midtones that arenice and contrasty, silvery, not too muddy.

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